Starring Sam Waterson, Dr Haing S. Ngor, John Malkovich, Julian Sands, Craig T. Nelson and Spalding Gray. 141 mins. 30Th Anniversary Blu-ray release from StudioCanal. This 30th anniversary Blu-ray release takes us back to a time when British cinema had the front to make its own 'Nam movies. (Yes, I know The Killing Fields is actually a Cambodia movie but Cambodia was Nam enough for Nixon and Kissinger.) It's a very British 'Nam movie – sensible, balanced, earnest impassioned, informative, based on a true story – and in this case that turns out to be a good thing. Other 'Nam movies are more endlessly re-watchable but while they are all to some extent time capsules, The Killing Fields – a story of a failed American military intervention that left a vacuum that would be filled by demented blood thirsty fanaticism – is equally relevant today. The true story in question is that of New York Times journalist Sydney Schanberg and his Cambodian translator Dith Pran. With his help Schanberg is able to get ahead of the pack covering the US intervention into Cambodia. When the government starts to fall to the rebel Khmer Rouge, Schanberg manages to get Pran's family evacuated out with the US embassy staff, but Pran stays on with Schanberg and when the country finally falls he cannot get out. Schanberg returns to the US to receive plaudits and prizes for his coverage while Pran has to try and survive re-education during Pol Pot's Year Zero. Concentrating on character over spectacle may seem terrible British but it works well here: partly because the spectacle of the conflict has been fully covered in the other films of the period but mostly because the characters are unusually well drawn. Though it doesn't hammer the point home, the film also makes clear that the big friendship that is the cornerstone of the narrative was wholly one sided and borderline abusive. Dr Haing S Ngor, a doctor who had never acted before but had lived through a similar story, won his Oscar, but Waterson is mightily impressive as Schanberg. The first two thirds of the film, set among the ex-pat community of journalist, doctors and soldiers in Cambodia is really strong. Roland Joffe, making his first feature after years working on TV doing Play For Today and the like, handles the big, complicated set ups with great skill. The Platoons and Apocalypses and Metal Jackets revelled in the horror, the horror of it all while secretly being rather excited by it. In the Killing Fields we see people who really are addicted to it, the war correspondents and photographers, and how their fervour for covering the story, reporting the horror of it all has warped their perspective. There are a few little weaknesses. The final third, Pran trying to survive the Khmer Rouge and make it out of Cambodia, feels a little perfunctory. In the extras, producer David Puttnam explains that originally there were many scenes of Schanberg having a nervous breakdown in New York provoked by his guilt at having left Pran behind, but they were dropped after a negative reaction in early preview screenings. There are also some ill-judged musical choices. The choice of John Lennon's Imagine for the final sequence was controversial at the time but it works better than Mike Oldfield's score which often seems to be chuntering along with little connection to what is on screen. Overall though The Killing Fields holds up much better than you might expect. It is one of the key films about the war in South East Asia, the slightly sensible and thorough one that balances out the flamboyant excesses of the other ones and is just as telling. The Extras. Other than a trailer these are three interviews: 20 minutes with screenwriter Bruce Robinson, 45 minutes each with director Joffe and producer David Puttnam. Of course, I went straight for the Robinson one, because he's the Withnail and I guy and is always a fun speaker. He has some interesting insights into the writing process and his meetings with Schanberg, but the really essential one is David, now Lord Puttnam. After his disastrous spell as studio head at Columbia and his involvement with New Labour Lord Puttnam, as happens to most anyone who becomes a Lord, has become something of a joke figure. In this 2005 interview he gives absolutely fascinating and thoughtful insights into the process of making the film. After it you'll feel a bit bad for all the nasty thing you said about him and regret that he became disillusioned with film amking and went off into the world of politics.